Preliminary notices in South Carolina
South Carolina has a notice of furnishing for subcontractors and suppliers, which is optional but recommended. We don't show a single deadline for it: optional; protects against the owner paying the GC after it's served. Verify with the state statute.
Lien filing deadline in South Carolina
If the GC hired you, you have 90 days after your last day furnishing labor or materials to record a mechanics lien in South Carolina, about the same as the national median of 90 days (counted from last furnishing on a sample job). 23 of the 51 jurisdictions we track use this same lien deadline, which makes it the most common rule.
The clock starts on your last day furnishing labor or materials under your contract. In many states, warranty visits and punch list work done mainly to extend the deadline don't restart it, so use your last day of real contract work.
Deadline to sue on the lien
To keep the lien alive you must sue to enforce it within 6 months after your last day furnishing labor or materials. That comes to about 183 days after your last day on the job, about 182 days shorter than the national median of 365 days. 6 of the 48 jurisdictions we track have a shorter overall time to sue and 39 have a longer one.
South Carolina counts the suit deadline from last furnishing, not from recording, so recording late eats into the time left to sue.
South Carolina counts the suit deadline from last furnishing.
How South Carolina compares
Days are counted on a sample job with the lien recorded on its last allowed day, so states that count from recording or from completion can be compared with those that count from your last day on site. The median is across the jurisdictions with a dated rule on file.
- Record the lien (from last day)
- South Carolina: 90 daysNational median: 90 days
- Sue to enforce (from last day)
- South Carolina: 183 daysNational median: 365 days
Public and federal projects
Public property can't be liened, so subcontractors and suppliers on state and local public jobs in South Carolina claim against the GC's payment bond instead. We haven't reduced South Carolina's bond claim deadlines to one set of numbers, because they vary by agency and project. The governing law is S.C. Code §11-35-3030. Verify the notice and suit deadlines with the statute and the bond itself before the job starts.
Federal jobs in South Carolina follow the Miller Act instead of state law: those hired by a sub or supplier give the prime contractor notice within 90 days of their last furnishing, and suit is due within 1 year, in federal court. Prime contractors on federal work have no lien or bond claim.
Retainage and prompt payment in South Carolina
On public work the cap is 3.5%, below the 5% median of states that set one. State agencies: up to 3.5% of each progress payment.
On private work we have no statutory cap on file, so retainage is usually whatever the contract says. Read the retainage and release clauses before you sign.
| Public work | Private work | Federal work | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retainage cap | 3.5% | Verify | 10% |
| Release | With final payment. | Verify with state statute | Released with final payment, or earlier once progress is satisfactory. |
| GC pays subs within | Verify | Verify | 7 days |
| Late-payment interest | Verify | Verify | Treasury prompt payment rate (reset every January and July) |
Not legal advice. Retainage and prompt payment rules differ by agency, contract size and contract date, and change often. Confirm the rules with the current statute, your contract and a construction attorney before relying on them.
Worked example: a flooring sub in South Carolina
A flooring subcontractor hired by the GC on a private elementary school addition in South Carolina starts work on March 2, 2026 and last furnishes on July 17, 2026. The project is completed on August 28, 2026. Run through South Carolina's rules, those dates give:
| Deadline | Date | Counted from |
|---|---|---|
| Record the lien | October 15, 2026 | Last furnishing |
| Sue to enforce the lien | January 17, 2027 Weekend | Last furnishing |
| Notice of furnishing | Verify with state statute | No single date |
The first deadline on the calendar is “Record the lien” on October 15, 2026.
One date lands on a weekend (January 17, 2027). Not every state rolls a deadline to Monday, so the safe move is to record or serve by the Friday before.
Rows marked "Verify" depend on facts or readings we can't settle for you, and rows without a date have no single number in the statute. Check them against S.C. Code §29-5-10 to -440.
Open the lien deadline calculator for South Carolina and enter your own dates to get this table for your job, with countdowns and a PDF deadline calendar.
Check your own dates with the free tools
- Mechanics lien and notice deadline calculator (SC): every notice, lien and suit date for your role, tier and job type.
- Retainage and prompt payment rules (SC): check your contract's retainage against the cap and work out late-payment interest.
- Schedule of values and pay application builder: bill each period with retainage calculated, so what you're owed is documented.
- Cash flow and retainage forecaster: see what slow payment and held retainage do to your bank balance.
Statutes cited
- S.C. Code §29-5-10 to -440
- S.C. Code §11-35-3030 (public bonds)
- S.C. Code §11-35-3030 (public)
- S.C. Code §29-6-10 to -60 (prompt pay)
- Federal work in South Carolina: 40 U.S.C. §3131 to §3134 (Miller Act)
Not legal advice. Lien and bond claim rules change and have exceptions for project type, contract terms and how notices are served. Confirm every deadline with the current statute or a construction attorney in the project's state before relying on it. Rules shown as "Verify with state statute" have exceptions or variations we could not reduce to one number.